Today is July 14, 2010. There’s no baseball being played anywhere. So I’m going to take this opportunity to do my mid-season Yankee rankings. Overall, I don’t think Yankee fans could be much happier with the team. The Yankees lead the entire league with a 56-32 record, two games ahead of Tampa for best in the AL and four games ahead of the NL-leading Atlanta Braves.

Most Valuable Player – Robinson Cano

Hands down the Yankees MVP this season, Cano has been almost unstoppable at the plate and has played superbly on defense as well. He earned his second all-star appearance this season and his first ever appearance as a starter. Cano leads the Yankees in batting average, runs scored, doubles and slugging percentage. He is second in on-base percentage and homers, and third in RBI. He also boasts a team low 40 strikeouts out of all Yankees with at least 200 at-bats.

Most Improved Player – Nick Swisher

Swish is one of my favorite Yankees and I know I’m not the only one who feels that way. The attitude and passion that Swisher brings to the game is unmatched. His fun-loving personality is a big reason for the Yankee’s success the past season and a half. Swisher has improved his eye at the plate, putting in a lot of work with hitting coach Kevin Long. Last season, Swish hit .249 with 29 homers, 124 hits 82 RBI, scored 84 runs and had a .371 on-base percentage in 498 at-bats. Midway through this season, in 315 at-bats, he is hitting, .296, with 94 hits, 15 homers, 49 RBI and has scored 55 runs due to his extra hits. His OBP is .377.

Biggest Disappointment – AJ Burnett

The sad thing is Burnett is exactly what everyone has criticized him for in the past – being inconsistent. Only two years removed from an 18-10 season for the Blue Jays, Burnett is performing below his salary at 7-7 with a 4.70 ERA. He is arguably the Yankees weakest starting pitcher right now, especially considering his win on July 7 in Oakland was his first since May 30th. He was 0-5 in five starts with an 11.35 ERA in June. The sad thing is Burnett started the season 4-0 with an ERA under 2.40, then was 6-2 with a 3.28 ERA before things went very downhill. The Yankees will need his veteran presence on the mound in the second half, especially since Phil Hughes will face innings limits later this season. Burnett needs to find a way to turn his season around.

Biggest Surprise – Phil Hughes

In spring training, Phil Hughes and Joba Chamberlain had to compete for the fifth spot in the Yankees starting rotation. Hughes had a successful spring while Joba struggled, earning Hughes the nod. Hughes dominated for the Yankees from the beginning. He started his season 5-0 with a 1.38 record, taking advantage of massive run support from the Yankee offense. Hughes is one of the top ten pitchers in the American League this season, boasting an 11-2 record with a 3.65 ERA, earning him a spot on the All-Star team. However, he will face inning limits later on this season, requiring the Yankees to get someone else to finish the season after he hits the limits. No word on his post season availability.

Grades

Offense: A The team is 2nd in runs scored and RBI, 5th in hits and 7th in batting average.

Starting Pitching: A- Sabathia & Co. are 1st in wins, 7th in ERA(2nd in AL only) and 10th in strikeouts. By the way, Andy Pettitte is 11-2 with a team leading 2.70 ERA. He could end up having the best season of his career at age 38.

Relief Pitching: B- Joba and David Robertson are the go-to guys in the pen’ but their ERA’s are 5.79 and 5.46, respectively. The bullpen has also only lost 10 games, a little better than average. But the Bombers still have the best closer of all time, Mariano Rivera.

Coaching: A Joe Girardi appears to have a good thing going with the Yankees right now and a great support staff, including pitching coach Dave Eiland and hitting coach Kevin Long. Whatever they’re doing, it’s working. The Yankees are in first place, enough said.

There is probably no doubt anywhere that Roger Clemens used steroids. As he continues his legal wrangling with his former trainer, Brian McNamee, the Yankees want none of it. However, McNamee has plans to include the Yankees.

According to a story by Nathaniel Vinton in the Daily News, in a brief filed on Friday, McNamee has named a handful of current Yankees as potential witnesses in Clemens’ defamation suit against McNamee.

The Yankees have never relished the destructive defamation suit former pinstripe hero Roger Clemens brought two years ago against his accuser, former Yankee trainer Brian McNamee, but bigger headaches for the club may yet lie ahead according to a new appeals-court brief issued by McNamee’s defense attorneys.

A footnote deep in the 60-page brief lists current Yankee stars Andy Pettitte,Mariano Rivera, and Derek Jeter as witnesses McNamee might call to the stand for sworn testimony about Clemens’ purported use of steroids and human growth hormone. Also listed among potential witnesses for McNamee is Angela Moyer, an alleged mistress of Clemens who tended bar near the Upper East Side apartment where McNamee said he visited Clemens after Yankee games to inject the pitcher with steroids and human growth hormone (Clemens has testified he thought the syringes contained vitamin B12).

The brief, which McNamee’s attorneys sent Friday to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, portrays Clemens’ defamation suit as nearly dead in the water. It comes in response to Clemens’ appeal of a lower court’s ruling last year that eviscerated the suit, which Clemens first brought against McNamee on Jan. 6, 2008, three weeks after a report by former Senator George Mitchell first publicized McNamee’s accusations. Mitchell was also listed as a potential witness. He and the others could also be summoned to testify as part of a defamation countersuit that McNamee himself brought against Clemens last year in a federal court in Brooklyn — and will likely pursue, at least in order to recover his monumental legal fees.

Right now only the legal system could prevent from having the Yankee players testify. If the courts are convinced with the brief, then this won’t happen.

One story that I enjoyed finding out about Yankee traditions is that Yogi Berra has his golf clubs shipped to Tampa. These clubs were at first stored in Joe Torre’s office. Now they’re in Joe Girardi’s office.

Guess who was at the camp today? None other than Yogi.

The Yanks had a bunch of bullpen sessions. Both Hughes and Chamberlain threw today. The aces of the team — Sabathia, Burnett, Pettitte, and Vazquez are all not pitching for a few days as to preserve their arm for a possible long season ahead of them.

Chad Jennings has photos and a summary of today’s workout. He reports that Pettitte feels good, even though he did the most innings since 2002, and Pettitte says it’s because the team was able to preserve the starters in September for the playoff run.

I’m home sick with a cold, sinus, and congestion. So while I’m sitting in bed blowing my nose every five minutes, I’ve been reading blogs and people’s tweets on Twitter. Here are some things for you all to read about this morning.

Top stories from last week:

The Winter Meetings in Indianapolis produced the busiest week of the Yankees’ offseason. They kicked it off by dealing reliever Brian Bruney to the Nationals in exchange for the first pick in the Rule 5 Draft.

The Yanks expressed interest in various free agent pitchers throughout the week, including Ben Sheets, Kelvim Escobar, and Ryota Igarashi, and of course they’re still in on Roy Halladay. They might not have room for another big contract, however.